


black lily

by savi0urdr3amer



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Clothed Sex, Deconstruction, Developing Relationship, Doomed Timelines, Drunken Confessions, Experimental Style, Explicit Consent, F/F, Falling In Love, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, LuciSev, Mental Health Issues, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Relationship Study, Self-Esteem Issues, Semi-Public Sex, Sexual Content, Suicidal Ideation, Suicide Attempt, at least. sort of. for a little while, because how can anyone healthily cope when the whole fucking world is ending :), i call this one: "severa: I can't believe it's not self-hatred!", morally ambiguous coping mechanisms, oh yeah henry is also sev's dad in this fic, okay it's in a castle hallway so it's not THAT public but y'kno
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-05-13 05:25:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14742792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/savi0urdr3amer/pseuds/savi0urdr3amer
Summary: Lucina is a rose; hopeful and bright and passionate, blooming in adversity and filled to the brim with pain that no one is ever able to see. Severa admires her, how she gleams with strength and survives, standing amidst even the most brutal flames without burning. She is everything the future Exalt should be: courageous, svelte, compassionate. And while Lucina survives, Severa struggles, armed to the teeth with barbs she can’t demobilize. Like her mother she is a daughter of the sea, a lily that withers and drowns, tainted at the tip of each petal, and she finds herself drawn to the fires of her own destruction.Lilies are not supposed to have thorns, and Severa has far too many.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> trigger warning in this chapter for past sexual assault (though note that it's only briefly mentioned), and for self-harm.

- 

“You have but fed on roses and lain in the lilies of life.” Alfred, Lord Tennyson, _Maud, Part I_

 

* * *

 

Severa’s been doing this for months. Staring. Pining.

It started unintentionally.

She realized one night how hopeless she was as Lucina told her stories as they basked in the light of the campfire, and she was like a prophet speaking to a band of misfits. As she spoke of her childhood, her father and his stoic yet gentle resolve her eyes caught and trapped the light, transforming into molten sapphires that made Severa’s heart pound, her palms clammy. She shuddered as Lucina’s gaze lit up like a firework, her pitch rising with every gallant tale of Chrom and his beloved tactician, a once nameless man who had fallen head over heels for the Ylissean prince. It was clear how badly she yearned for whatever their little gang was – a band of misfits, a bunch of traumatized children – to be like the Shepherds her father led so valiantly, so naturally.

Yet Severa always felt they fell more than a few steps short of them. Or at least she felt like she did. She felt mechanical, a puppet living in her mother’s legacy, doomed to wear her face, her hair, a pronounced shade of scarlet that’s far too easy to spot in a crowd. Lucina might be like her father, but Severa sees herself as everything but her mother, merely a façade. A poor imitation.

It’s been six months since Severa left a gang of cutthroat mercenaries to join Lucina and her army – or whatever it is they are. (She’s given up on deciding.)

Her memories are jagged pieces and she doesn’t know if there will be another six months, at this rate.

“Severa? Are you all right? You’re staring.” Lucina says softly, the shape of her lips illuminated by the light of the fire, and suddenly Severa’s heart pounds so hard she feels it in her ears.

“Yeah, sorry. I’m just tired,” Lucina’s voice, combined with the thought of the fell dragon’s violet wings devouring the world, shake Severa out of her thoughts and pull her back into reality.

“I’m going to go to bed. Wake me up when it’s my turn to keep watch.” She continues after a few seconds of silence, pulling a blanket over her body that’s rougher than straw, and as she lays down she turns away from Lucina, leaving her to be the only one still awake. Faintly, Severa can make out the stars in the sky, and she connects them like dots of ink on paper.

“I see. Good night, Severa.”

Her sleep is dreamless.

-

Three days later Severa makes what could be the biggest mistake of her goddamn life, but even the immediate worry lingering in her conscience doesn’t stop her from taking a half-full bottle of wine from Inigo’s hands and swallowing as much of the putrid shit she can handle. He’d found box after box of alcohol stashed in the old wine cellar no one ever really bothered to look in; a lot of rooms in the castle were like that, really. What looked like doors sometimes felt like walls. But she supposes that curiosity can get the best of you at times, and if she knows anything about Inigo it’s that he’s as curious as he is chauvinistic, like a cat with a knack for getting into things it shouldn’t.

She’d had alcohol before, back when she was still a mercenary and snatched up coin and food alike like some kind of hitman, but never this much. It’s bitter yet somehow sweet, and it leaves a taste in her mouth that’s like blood. Words start to roll off of her tongue in an unhinged fashion she can’t control, and within minutes Severa’s body feels like it’s off its axis; each step feels like she could trip and fall diagonally through the floor at any second, and with a drunken hiccup she laughs wildly at one of Owain’s awful jokes and watches Inigo twirl around Ylisstol’s mess hall with a broom. With a wry grin she tells him that’s the closest thing he’ll ever get to a woman and Inigo stops mid-step to scold her with a frown and there’s raucous laughter. Lucina even giggles and it makes Severa feel like there are wings unfurling in her ribs.

Lucina’s hardly had anything to drink, says she doesn’t like it much, but the unfamiliar taste of the alcohol still turns her cheeks a faint shade of pink that’s far prettier than any sunrise Severa’s ever seen. And so Severa looks at her, as she always does, and though she’s far from inconspicuous about it in this condition she somehow can’t bring herself to give a single damn.

She notices something new about Lucina every time she sees her. Her brows furrow when she’s focused or determined or confused, and her lips purse whenever she thinks of something to say; her bottom lip curves downwards like the petal of an orchid and Severa’s equally as drunk on the thought of kissing those goddamn pretty lips of hers as she is actually… well, _drunk_. Sometimes her brand twinkles in her eye and Severa swears she could catch the stars from how big and deep and blue her eyes are, and she’s always been jealous of them, truth be told. Her own eyes are dark and bottomless and bleak and she hates them, hates them almost as much as she hates herself.

Lucina gazes up at her, her lips wrapped around a mug she just filled with water, and she blinks a few times, perplexed.

“You’re staring again, Severa,” She says between sips. “Do I have something on my face?”

“Huh? No!” Severa snorts, an ugly sound she hadn’t meant to make. “I just can’t _help_ it.”

“Can’t help what?” Lucina asks, her pretty little brows furrowing in the same way Severa’s seen a thousand times. But she never gets tired of it. Never.

“What do you mean _‘can’t help what’_?” Severa rolls her eyes dramatically with a laugh. The words feel like marbles rolling out of her mouth but she can’t stop them. “Have you _seen_ yourself? You’re _beaaaautiful_.”

Lucina chuckles. “I appreciate your honesty, though you’ll have to forgive me because I can’t say for sure how true that compliment is.”

“Ugh, you don’t get it, do you?” Severa ungracefully takes another drink of her wine. It’s sweeter now, she thinks- there’s a sugary aftertaste to it that makes her tongue tingle. “I _like_ you, you idiot.”

There’s an instant pang of regret in her chest, akin to a punch, but the alcohol numbs the embarrassment until it’s a dull throb. Her belly feels warm and fluttery, and she can feel her face growing hot. (She always looked like her mother when she blushed, people told her. She hated hearing it.)

“Oh? Do you now?” Lucina smirks a bit, though not at all smugly. It’s like she’s accepting a compliment, and she knows Lucina well enough by now to know that it’s a telltale sign that she’s flustered.

“Duh.” Severa can’t stop grinning, though she’d be far from sneering at the situation if she were sober. What kind of loser drunkenly confesses their feelings to the person they’re in love with? (Her, clearly. Gods, she wants to grimace at herself.)

“I’m quite fond of you as well, Severa,” Lucina says back, briefly maintaining eye contact before taking another sip of water. Severa feels her cheeks grow even hotter and there’s a warmth in her body that feels like sunlight and laughter and what may damn well be the closest thing to a happiness she hasn’t felt since she was a kid. “You’re a good friend.”

 _Friend._ Severa feels her heart drop into her gut.

There are feelings in her chest now, rising up from her heart to her throat and bleeding onto the tip of her tongue like a disease, and Severa can’t even stop herself from getting up and holding onto Lucina’s wrist like a lifeline.

“No,” she mutters, now all too aware of how wobbly she feels as she pulls Lucina up from her chair and drags her out of the mess hall, leaving Inigo still performing a piss-poor one-man rendition of an old play he and Owain had recently found in the library. Before Severa shuts the door she can hear Owain reading off the stage directions and Brady snorts as Inigo stiffly recites one of the main character’s final monologues.

It also occurs to her a few seconds later that she probably made Lucina spill her water. She’ll take care of that later.

“Listen,” Severa mutters once she closes the door, her voice low but full of a passion she can’t rein in. Lucina eyes her intently, albeit a bit perplexed, but doesn’t shake from Severa’s grip. “I _like_ you, Lucina. Hell, I _love_ you. I always have. I know it’s stupid and I look like a fool right now, but I mean it. I guess I’ve been too much of a goddamn pansy to tell you about it before now, but the way I see you… it isn’t only a friend.”

Severa practically winces as the words leave her mouth, knowing fully well that she can’t take them back now, that the damage is done. Gods, she’s just like her mother. Crushing on someone she can never have. Pining over someone she doesn’t deserve.

“Oh,” Lucina’s voice drips with that goddamn compassion her father was so well known for, so infuriatingly sweet and tender, and it makes Severa want to kiss her until she’s dizzy. “Severa, I-”

Her words are cut off by the sound of the door opening, and Cynthia pops her head through to look at them, her perfectly curly brown pigtails bouncing about her face like springs.

“Inigo’s getting to the climax! Aren’t you two going to come watch?” She blinks a few times, intrigued. “Hey, what’s going on? You look like you’re talking about something serious.”

Lucina exhales softly and makes brief eye contact with Severa, as if waiting for her response.

“Nothing. Just some girl talk,” Severa says, quickly trying to break the seriousness in the air. “Geez, Cynthia, don’t you know how to mind your own business? You’re so nosy.”

“Sorry for being curious,” Cynthia says, rolling her eyes. Severa has to bite back the venom that comes close to drunkenly leaving the tip of her tongue. “So are you two gonna tell me what you were talking about or what?”

“In your dreams.” Severa snaps with a dry, calloused laugh.

As Cynthia drags them back into the mess hall Lucina leans in close to Severa’s ear and places her hand on her shoulder. Her breath tickles against Severa’s neck, making sparks jolt down her spine, igniting like little stellar bursts.

“We’ll talk about this later, okay?” She murmurs. Severa doesn’t have the courage to make eye contact with her, and she doesn’t respond. Hell, she doesn’t even know _how_ to, what to say, what to _think_.

Gods, she’s such an idiot.

She leaves during Inigo’s final bow and locks herself in one of the spare barracks, curling up into a ball in a corner bed that’s far too stiff to sleep comfortably on. What the fuck was she thinking?

-

Severa wakes with a headache that’s intense enough to rival a concussion, and the knocking at the door does everything but help the pounding in her brain and the regret churning in her stomach.

“It’s _locked_ ,” She hisses, pulling a ratty sheet up to her face. The holes in it make her shiver. “Go bother someone else.”

There’s silence after that, and Severa thinks that maybe it was Inigo again, coming to complain about his nonexistent girl problems that she’s far too tired of hearing. _Maybe he got the hint_ , she tells herself. It’s not her fault that he lacks the charm his father was known for. The great Chrom of Ylisse, who was killed by the tactician who loved him more than anything in the world. His own right hand man. How fucking rich.

To Severa’s shock the lock clicks open a few seconds later. _Oh._ She knows exactly who it is now. Great. 

“Severa.” Lucina says softly, and as evenly as possible. Severa glances up at her briefly and averts her gaze when they make eye contact. She can hardly see her in the darkness, but Lucina’s silhouette is unmistakable- flowing hair, broad shoulders, toned body standing stiff and regal like a statue standing guard.

Severa’s curled around herself, head resting in her knees like they’re a safe haven, a shield, and her spine is like a toy doll that’s been wound up too tightly.

“That was locked for a reason,” She answers bitterly, shutting her eyes. The words hardly feel like they’ve been spoken even after they’ve left her mouth.

Lucina sighs.

“You forget I have the master key,” Worry seeps into her words, and if Severa didn’t know any better she’d say Lucina sounds almost like a parent scolding their child. “Besides, it’s half past noon and everyone is looking for you.”

“Go tell them to look somewhere else, then. I’m not in the mood to talk,” Severa swallows hard. The weight in her throat both burns and aches, an ugly, fierce repression of her own self-hatred and embarrassment. She has nothing but the urge to seal herself off in a box made of solid steel, its walls miles thick.

“Will you at least drink some water?” Lucina coaxes. “I brought some for you. I can leave it on the nightstand, if you wish.”

“Fine.”

“Severa, I… I’m sorry if I said something rash last night. Did… did I hurt you?” Lucina’s timbre feels like aloe and mint rubbing over a fresh burn, and it’s vexing how calming it is.

It occurs to Severa that Lucina could coil her around her finger like a strand of hair if she wanted to, and that she’d do anything for her. It’d be easier than batting an eyelash. She could stab herself through the heart. Lie through her teeth. Love her until she was empty. Perhaps that’s just the effect that Lucina has on her, the charm of the exalted in her blood like a hex. It’s possible that everyone who meets Lucina feels this gravitational pull towards her.

Or maybe Severa is a silly girl who’s stupidly in love with royalty, and is equally as enamored with the thought of being loved by someone. (She’s not really sure anymore. It could be both, really.)

Severa chews on the inside of her cheek so hard she tastes blood. “Like I said, I’m not in the mood to talk right now. Are you dea-” She has to bury the daggers in her words, put the toxin back into her veins, where it smolders beneath her skin. Lucina doesn’t deserve it. She’s too good. “…Sorry. Another time, okay?”

“All right. But will you please consider coming to dinner tonight? I… I have to go stand watch for a few hours and I’d appreciate the company when I get back.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Thank you, Severa,” Lucina pauses and swallows, and for a second her voice cracks like a piece of armor, her composure flaking. Severa’s never heard her sound like that before. “I… I may need it.”

As soon as the door shuts Severa sleeps again. She doesn’t know for how long, but in her dreams she finds herself trapped in the eyes of someone else, a genius with spikes of silver for hair and a lick of flame simmering in their fingertips.

Robin always said that irony has a weird way of working out, and that it comes when you least expect it.

Well, Irony can fuck itself.

-

When Severa was younger, she would count out her nightmares one by one with her fingers, remembering each in horrifically graphic detail, and although it was like prodding a wound it was a habit she could never bring herself to stop. It was a masochistic sort of samsara, delving into her own scars before they’d ever been given time to heal, but as time went on she couldn’t blame herself anymore.

When your life goes to shit, sometimes the easiest thing to do is pull yourself apart at the seams. That was what she always told herself, at least.

She’s run out of space to count the nightmares now. But that doesn’t stop her from remembering them more than she remembers her own mother, her childhood, her sense of self.

What good is a girl who doesn’t even know who she is? 

-

Severa rolls out of bed with memories of Nelson’s mercenary band on the surface of her skin, rising up in a cold sweat, and she has to remind herself that she no longer leaves a knife in her boot when she sleeps. It was a precautionary measure. Just in case. A lot of things became like that after Chrom died, and the original Shepherds followed soon after, which made her an orphan just before her thirteenth birthday.

And she did pull that dagger out of her boot, once, when one of Nelson’s lackeys drunkenly tried to pull down her shorts and fondle her while she was sleeping. He smelled like rum and piss and something disgusting enough to make her retch, and as she briefly locked eyes with him she dug the blade into his gut and watched it ooze into his tattered clothes, blooming like a deep, red rose. Afterwards she spat on him and broke his jaw. Sick fucker.

Nelson made her go without food for a week after that, and he’s damn lucky she didn’t stab him, too.

Oh. Speaking of food, she’s fucking _hungry_ , she realizes, her stomach rumbling as she stands up. She briefly blacks out as she regains consciousness, and dizziness dances in her head. When was the last time she ate? She can’t remember.

She decides, though a bit reluctantly, to take Lucina up on that offer after all.

-

Severa hears Gerome scream when she passes the infirmary on her way to the mess hall. Or whatever’s left of it. Faintly, Brady murmurs something about successfully popping his dislocated shoulder back in, and though she’s admittedly curious she decides that something that gruesome and painful is best suited for after dinner. She’s always been a lousy medic, anyways. He’ll be fine. Eventually.

She doesn’t know what’s for dinner tonight. Most people stopped keeping track months ago, truthfully, when rations slimmed down even more and the majority of the crops died from the drought. At this point they’re all desperate enough to take whatever they can get their hands on, whether it comes from an abandoned house or from a seedy traveling merchant. One of them once asked Lucina for Falchion in exchange for a few months’ worth of bread and Severa, far too adept on the workings of shady market deals, laughed in his face and told him to get lost.

Severa sits down next to Lucina with a bland half-boiled carrot in her mouth, and it feels like a coin in her throat as she swallows it. It tastes like a water chestnut. Definitely Owain’s cooking. As she takes another sip of bland soup she watches Lucina’s entire demeanor immediately light up like a Christmas tree.

“I’m glad you could make it,” Lucina tells her. A faint smile tugs at her lips, hardly more than a smirk, and she looks so much like Chrom it’s almost nauseating.

“Don’t count on it becoming a regular occurrence,” Severa says tersely, biting into a stale piece of bread. A faint streak of sunlight pierces through a broken window panel that’s close to the ceiling and it shoots a spear of gold into Severa’s eye as she turns her head, making her flinch. It’s not often that they see sunlight anymore; most days the sky is obscured from the dust and the ash, a dark hybrid of chartreuse and gray, and it reeks of death and smoke. In the distance fires light the horizon, gleaming like rubies, hardly a shade brighter than Severa’s carmine hair.

“You’re awfully chipper tonight,” Severa remarks, watching Kjelle sit across from her, her obnoxiously bulky armor glinting bright silver in the light. “What’s the occasion?”

“I’m just glad to see you is all,” is Lucina’s answer. It sounds genuine. “You’ve been… distant lately.”

“Yeah, well. With the world ending and all my schedule is pretty full,” Severa retorts sarcastically, which earns her a subtle smile from Lucina. Beside her Inigo snorts and struggles not to spit out his water.

If Severa’s being honest, she’s not wrong; everyone knows things have gotten worse recently. There have been more casualties than victories, and each day the Risen seem to be getting closer. According to Laurent they’ve been adapting. Ylisstol is the safest place they have now, and even its stone walls are crumbling by the hour. In truth, they’re probably fucked. But no one talks about that.

“Say, Severa. Would you care to get seconds with me?” Lucina asks. Severa hasn’t eaten half of her plate and probably won’t devour much more of Owain’s pathetic attempt at soup, but she still finds herself nodding, transfixed on the smoothness of Lucina’s skin. Her hair seems to change color in the light, like the color of a raven’s feathers.

They’re not getting more food. Severa knows that. Lucina leads her out of the mess hall when no one is looking, takes her hand and intertwines it with her own. Her hand is warm and slippery and fits so well in Severa’s it’s almost too good to be true, and when Lucina turns a corner Severa’s heart pounds.

She knows what this is about, too. She isn’t stupid.

Lucina’s pace quickens and Severa stumbles behind her.

“Hey, you’re pulling my- _ow,_ that-” Severa protests, only to have Lucina face her, interrupting her with a kiss that’s as sudden as it is horrifically awkward. Lucina’s hands are on her shoulders, tugging at her hair, and she blinks one, two, three times in shock before relaxing enough to actually kiss her back.

Lucina’s lips are clumsy and stiff and she’s far from coordinated, but within seconds Severa’s tugging at her waist, pulling her closer, trying to teach Lucina how to kiss someone without being stiffer than a board.

“Gods, you’re a terrible kisser,” Severa says with a laugh, a bit out of breath. “Haven’t you ever kissed anyone before?”

For a second Lucina seems almost hurt, her brows knitting, eyes softening. She looks like a kicked puppy.

“Besides you? No, I haven’t,” She answers, embarrassed, her cheeks flushing a rosy shade of pink. “Why don’t you teach me?”

Lucina may be terrible at kissing but her lips are still sweeter than she ever dreamed of, and Severa quickly finds herself addicted to the way Lucina gasps when her teeth graze her bottom lip.

“Is this what you wanted before your guard duty tonight?” Severa asks breathlessly between wanton kisses. “A quick fuck?”

“I wouldn’t call it that, no,” Lucina remarks, pulling out Severa’s hair ties, making Severa’s hair cascade down to her waist in messy, thick waves. “I wanted to find out what kissing you felt like before I left tonight. In case I don’t come back.”

“ _Umph-_ Wait, what?” Severa mutters against Lucina’s lips. She breaks the kiss with a sheen against her lips, leaving Lucina flushed and wanting.

“It’s been planned for a while. We’re retrieving the Fire Emblem. Starting with every gem that’s been lost,” Lucina explains, rubbing the back of her neck with her hand. It’s an anxious habit of hers, Severa’s learned. “Starting tonight. And I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t tell you how I felt. I’ve been hopelessly in love with you since the moment I saw you, Severa.”

Severa stares at her. She doesn't know what to make of this.

“You… you mean that?” Lucina’s words feel like bricks. A thousand tons on her shoulders.

“Of course I do. Have I ever said something I didn’t mean?”

She hasn’t. Like her father, Lucina is honest to a fault; she couldn’t tell a lie even if she tried to, while Severa could lie through her teeth in a heartbeat, and she has. But Severa is honest here, perhaps more honest than she’s been in her life, and the months of pining and admiration swell up in her stomach and scatter like butterflies, leaving every vein in her body warm and electric and filled with a desire she could drown in.

So Severa indulges. She kisses Lucina harder, more desperately, presses their lips together so deeply she almost forgets how to breathe. She pulls and tugs at Lucina’s clothes, itching to feel what her skin feels like beneath that armor, to see the unbreakable future Exalt at her weakest. She pins Lucina against the wall, presses a leg between her thighs, and traces her tongue against Lucina’s exposed collarbones, and Lucina lets out a low moan that makes Severa thrill.

“Is this too fast?” Severa asks, her fingers slipping beneath Lucina’s undershirt. Lucina shakes her head and takes Severa’s hands within her own, encouraging her to unbutton and unzip what she can as she nips hungrily at her neck.

“No,” She says, panting. “Do it. I want you to.”

It’s been a long time since Severa’s touched someone like this, and she knows she doesn’t have much time to give Lucina what she wants. So Severa she sinks down to her knees and unbuttons her trousers, keen on how Lucina’s eyes flutter when she presses her lips to her stomach, and she follows the jut of Lucina’s hips with her tongue. Lucina instinctively jerks forward, her back arching as her shoulders dig into the concrete of the wall, her toned abdomen tensing with each roll of her hips.

“Severa, _please,_ ” Lucina pleads. Half of her face is illuminated by the light of the setting sun. “You need to hurry.” 

Severa eyes her intently, watching the patterns on the windows paint intricate patterns on her skin like tattoos, and she obediently buries her head between Lucina’s legs. She doesn’t have the leisure to tease her or drag the sensation out, and while it takes a few swipes of her tongue to figure out exactly what Lucina likes, Severa realizes quickly that Lucina loses all control when she presses her tongue flat against her clit and _sucks_. She drinks in every moan and gasp Lucina makes, playing it over and over in her head, eating her out with the slightest fear in the back of her head that this may be the only time she’ll ever be able to. So she tells herself that she will remember this. She wallows in Lucina’s taste and scent and desire, and she doesn’t stop until Lucina’s urgently grinding against her face and whimpering.

Lucina comes with a grip that’s like iron in Severa’s hair, and Severa, holding her breath from the anticipation, finds herself dizzy and her head stings but all she knows is Lucina. The girl she’s yearned for, the girl with royalty like liquid gold in her blood, the wielder of Falchion, brave and fiery and embarrassingly, hilariously oblivious at times.

Lucina urges Severa up presses their lips together gently, tenderly, her lips softening into a kiss that’s no longer awkward and rigid.

“I… I hadn’t planned on that,” She murmurs, her hand cupping Severa’s face. “Thank you. I’ll repay you for this. I promise.”

“You can as long as you don’t die out there,” Severa remarks. “You better come back, you hear me?”

“I will,” Lucina assures her with a nod, fastening and straightening what Severa undid of her clothes. “I’m not one to lie, and I’m certainly not one to break promises. Remember?”

Lucina kisses her goodbye in secret and leaves at sundown, marching with her band of soldiers into the darkness. That night Severa sleeps with Lucina’s lips fresh in her mind, and she dreams of her teeth falling out.  

-

Severa is fucking the future Exalt.

If anyone told her a few months ago that she’d be sleeping with Lucina of all people, she would’ve roared with laughter. But tensions are high and Severa is as enamored with Lucina as Lucina is with her, and when they’re together it doesn’t seem to matter that nearly half the garrison has died in the span of only a few weeks; when Lucina closes the bedroom door and climbs on top of her they are only two girls who know how to express themselves far better with actions than words, and if Severa shuts her eyes and doesn’t think about anything else sometimes she can forget about the turmoil plaguing the outside world, even if only for a few minutes. And when times get even more stressful and dire and desolate they take out their frustrations on each other, staying up into the late hours of the night with their bodies tangled together, writing letters on skin with their fingertips.

Presumably, Lucina is inexperienced and uncoordinated at first. So Severa guides Lucina’s hands down her body, shows her where to touch and how to curl her fingers at just the right angle so stars combust in her eyes as she quivers against the headboard. And to no one’s surprise, Lucina is also a very quick learner; soon she has Severa biting back curses and pleas that would make even the filthiest of romance novels seem tame, and Lucina quickly revels in the dominance she feels when she pins Severa to the bed and fucks her until she’s screaming.

For weeks Severa sneaks up to her corridors and entwines herself in Lucina’s bed before either of them have responsibilities that no one should ever have, let alone teenagers, and sometimes she pretends that the world isn’t so bad, that people are not dying daily and they don’t return with blood on their hands. They are not orphans that inherited a falling halidom damaged beyond repair, but instead two girls, simply royalty and commoner, suspending themselves in a dream that neither of them have the courage to admit isn’t real.

Lucina returns with new scars sometimes, has wounds bandaged across her shoulders and her abdomen, but she never ceases. She continues and she endures and she grits her teeth despite it all, because that’s all she can do. All she knows.

Other times Severa returns with memories of her arrows in an enemy’s neck and she imagines how the tip would feel piercing her stomach instead, and she wonders if it’s worth it, retrieving these gems that are no larger than pearls. Each glimmers a different color and something smolders inside of them like a flame encased in glass, and while Severa is conceivably too pessimistic to believe in such fairytales Lucina assures her that this tale is a very real one. The Fire Emblem has the power to banish Grima and save this dying realm. Why else would it have been House Ylisse’s most priceless treasure?

The night before Lucina leaves to retrieve the final gem she tells Severa what she dreams of. A future with a home and a family and only smiles that will never know the weight of war and death, and Severa almost wants to laugh because any happiness she’s ever felt has been fleeting. The threat of battle was always there for her, had always snuck up behind her and reminded her that it was there, holding a knife to her mother’s throat. She’s never known a life of roses and clear skies and tailored outfits embroidered with gold and silk; she’s starved before, slept on cold floors, scrounged through trash and dirt to find her next meal, all before her mother had even died. She’s never known anything else. _Sure sounds like some kind of dream_ , she tells Lucina, gazing up at the ceiling. _I don’t know what that would feel like._

Lucina says that maybe she will, that she’ll experience it with her, and Severa holds back the urge to laugh again. Lucina is a rose; hopeful and bright and passionate, blooming in adversity and filled to the brim with pain that no one is ever able to see. Severa admires her, how she gleams with strength and survives, standing amidst even the most brutal flames without burning. She is everything the future Exalt should be: courageous, svelte, compassionate. And while Lucina survives, Severa struggles, armed to the teeth with barbs she can’t demobilize. Like her mother she is a daughter of the sea, a lily that withers and drowns, tainted at the tip of each petal, and she finds herself drawn to the fires of her own destruction.

Lilies are not supposed to have thorns, and Severa has far too many.

-

Severa’s asleep when Lucina returns. The sound of Lucina’s footsteps wake her (she’d recognize the sound of those boots anywhere, after all), but she’s suddenly so much less coordinated than usual. Something’s wrong.

“Lucina?” Severa’s rubbing her eyes when Lucina removes her circlet from her head, a gift from her father that had been passed down from all her predecessors, and throws it into the darkness. The sound of expensive metal hitting tile rings in her ears and Severa suddenly jerks upright, the adrenaline setting her skin on fire. 

Lucina slams her fists into the wall in frustration, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“It’s broken. It’s fucking broken,” She cries, baring her teeth as she scowls so hard her lips begin to tremble.

Severa grimaces. Fear sinks into her stomach, spreads like ink in water, and something in her feels like winter.

“What’s broken?” She hurls herself out of bed and places one hand on Lucina’s shoulder desperately, pleadingly. “Lucina, _what’s_ broken? Tell me!”

Only Lucina’s eyes move. They’re dark now, darker than Severa’s ever seen them, the color of a cloudy midnight sky, hopeless and stark and brooding. As more tears well up her nose wrinkles and she sniffles, her thin, dark brows knitting together tightly.

“Sable,” She chokes out, her face paling. She looks like a phantom. “Inigo’s reconnaissance group failed. They hardly managed to escape alive.”

As Lucina pulls her in close and sobs into her shoulder Severa, dumbfounded and wholly, utterly beside herself, stares at the empty wall ahead of her, writing the millions of possibilities of their deaths on it with her thoughts, each morbid possibility manifesting in darkened, black ink. She knows exactly what this means.

There will be no Awakening. Grima will win. Their odds of surviving are now more miniscule than ever, if there’s even a chance for survival at all.

“Severa, what are we going to do?” Lucina sobs. She has never sounded so powerless.

Severa spends half the night consoling Lucina, staring blankly at the wrinkled sheets that adorn the bed, and she imagines herself falling into the crevices, envisioning her descent the way one would when falling from a cliff.

After Lucina cries herself to sleep Severa peels herself from Lucina’s desperate grip, leaves her curled amongst the blankets, her face tacky with dried tears, and she locks herself in the master bathroom. For a long while she stares blankly at her own reflection in the full-body mirror, trying to process the reality of what’s to come.

She remembers her father, with his tuft of white hair and bright smile, how his scarred hands lifted her up on his shoulders, high enough for her to examine his collections of tomes that adorned the shelves of their home. She used to run her fingers along the covers, feeling the velvet ridges against her skin, and he told her one day that perhaps she’d be like him, a gifted mage with an affinity for destruction and necromancy, a denounced and technically forbidden field that he learned to call home. She could learn to obliterate, just like he did- she could dissipate, split herself into thousands of feathery pieces like the crows that manifested around him, or maybe she could be like Lissa. A cleric. Someone with gentle, shaky hands and an apothecary full of herbs and embalmed staves, armed with her own quiet strength and clement resolve. It was up to her, he told her. Only she could decide her fate.

She remembers her mother, too. Her goddamn perfect mother who somehow wasn’t perfect enough to be immortal. Severa remembers her so damn well, her crimson hair and soft ochre eyes that filled with love and happiness and passion whenever she spoke, and if Severa was lucky, if she was good, she would let her ride on her Pegasus with her. Severa, smiling wider than she ever had, would stretch out her arms, the wind soaring through the spaces between her fingers, and she would visualize herself catching stars from the night sky, plucking them from the night’s embrace like she was picking an apple from a tree. Her hair would tangle and sometimes the drops would make her heart sink and then rise with each flutter of wings, but in those moments she’d never felt more alive, had never been more free.

And she remembers Nelson, with his greasy hair and saw-tooth smile, how he looked at her when he twirled her mother’s ring tauntingly around his bony fingers. _Looking for this?_ He tossed it up in the air before catching it, drunk with power. Rage boiled up in Severa, red and blistering, so dissonant and scathing it felt like poison in her blood. He knew exactly what is was and what it meant to her.

 _Give it back,_ she snarled at him, her plea sounding far more like a visceral order. _Give it back, you son of a bitch, give it back-_

It reminds Severa of Cordelia again, how she’s cursed with her features and her goddamn desire for perfection. She has the same face, the same eyes, the same hair. Even her name pays homage to her, never lacking in severity or intensity. Severa always burned. She was meant to; it was in her blood. She wants to rip open her skin, see if Cordelia would lie there, too, between her capillaries, lurking beneath the surface. What would she see then? If only she could purge herself of her, separate herself from her mother who somehow was flawed enough to be human. Cordelia. Fucking Cordelia. Her eyes narrow and as she blinks and in those moments it is no longer Severa staring at herself in the mirror but Cordelia looking back at her, and with an emboldened scream Severa slams her fist into the glass and shatters it.

Only she could decide her fate? Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning for a suicide attempt in this chapter, and for a mention of past self-harm.

-

In the late hours the next night Severa leaves, takes the longest route out of the castle that she knows no one patrols. There’s dust in the air and what’s left of glass in the windows glows a gradient of peach and purple and crimson, and it looks like a bruise against Severa’s papery skin as she passes through each set of doors, her steps like a ghost’s.

She can’t be followed. She can’t be. She made sure to leave around dinner, when she’d be the least likely to run into anyone. Brady was supposed to be making stew tonight. Everyone likes it.

When she’s outside and feels the grass against her shins she runs. Already she can see smoke in the distance, she smells it in the air, and she takes off towards it, the space where her mother’s ring usually lies on her finger feeling empty, phantasmal, instead only pulsing with a dull, bruising pain. Part of her wishes she’d brought it with her so she could throw it as far as she could, screaming _fuck you, fuck you, fuck you_ , letting go of the last thing she had in her life that made her feel like she wasn’t alone. (She’d left it on the nightstand in Lucina’s room and only hopes she doesn’t notice it.)

But she’s not going to die in front of her mother. It won’t be like her. There will be no arrows in her belly, no punctured lungs and choked breaths. She’s going to die swiftly, alone, in a scorched hell with a Risen’s rusty blade in her aorta, twisting it inside of her like a key opening a lock. She wears no armor, no padding, no protection; all that sits between her and the tip of an enemy’s blade is empty space that will soon be filled.

The grass at Severa’s feet becomes dry, snapping beneath her like a twig, and the scent of burnt skin makes her want to gag, her eyes watering and stinging. She’s afraid. There’s more than soot in the air, she knows, and she shudders at the thought of exactly _what_ kind of morbid concoction it is- the Risen have manifested in her nightmares before, countless times in fact, all twisted bones and grotesque, distorted smiles like coiled up barbed wire, ruby eyes and entrails draped over what’s left of ribcages. There have been times where they’ve spoken, but no one’s ever understood them- she doesn’t know if they speak Plegian, or if whatever’s left of their memories is so jumbled the words come out like gibberish. (Regardless, it’s always left a knot of dread in her throat, sent shivers down her spine.)

It’s a twisted way to die, she thinks, at the hands of one of them. But it’s either that or a leap into a river, and right now the combined scarcity of water from the war and the summer heat has left the streams too shallow and calm to do any real damage.

And if she’s lucky the Risen will drag her body away once they’re done with her. That way no one will ever know, will never find her (especially Lucina. Gods, especially Lucina). Whether it’s for show or some kind of twisted ritual offering to Grima, she doesn’t care; all she knows is that she wants to be gone, to disappear, to _vanish_ , to be rid of a world that was doomed from the start.

There’s a pack of them in the forest- Severa can already smell them before she sees them, but it isn’t long before sets of eyes like lasers fixate on her, their expressionless, bony faces as blank as ever yet still painfully sinister. This is a normal guerilla warfare kind of game they play, seemingly spawning out of nowhere and wandering around the outskirts of Ylisstol as if only for the sake of temptation; sometimes they advance to where they can be seen outside the castle windows, but lately they’ve been almost defensive. No one knows why. Perhaps they don’t even think anymore. 

For a brief second she thinks about turning back and running as fast as she can. There are tears in her eyes and she can’t tell if she’s crying or if it’s from the smoke that’s filling the sky with thick charcoal puffs.

But she doesn’t.

She doesn’t blink as she runs towards them, doesn’t hesitate like the girl she always made herself out to be. She thinks of nothing but the only freedom she’s wanted for as long as she can remember, for what she’s yearned for longer than when her mother was alive, and she throws herself at one of their spears with a sob in her throat, anticipating the sharp, brutal sting in her belly that so many of her predecessors felt in their final surreptitious moments.

She’s going to die, she thinks. This is going to be it.

Except it isn’t.

“Severa!” 

Lucina’s words are followed by the clash of metal, and Severa winces at the sound; it’s poignant and harsh and _unwanted_ , and she falls back-first onto the scorched rubble as Lucina shoves her to the side and steps over her, Falchion drawn, her stance like a lion about to pounce on its prey. Wide-eyed, Severa merely stares at Lucina’s silhouette standing amidst the setting sun, the shadows making her cape and larkspur hair merge into one. Her fingertips rattle, tapping into the ground, and her poor excuse for a sword lies a few inches away from her grasp, a dull silver blade hardly usable, far more likely to cut her hair than an enemy’s skin.

“What are you _doing?_ ” If the sound of Falchion clashing with the Risen’s blade wasn’t sharp enough, Lucina’s voice is like a stab to the gut; Severa can almost feel herself bleeding.

 _Go. Leave. I don’t want to be saved._ Severa finds the words hanging eerily in the back of her throat, weighed down by something full of guilt and seething, and they linger inside of her like a silent curse. When she tries to speak all she manages is a stutter.

“Severa, what were you _thinking?_ ” There’s more than just confusion in Lucina’s voice, more than anger– there’s _hurt_ , like a wound that’s festering, and Severa swallows hard as the regret settles into her.

“I-I wasn’t,” She stammers, now hardly breathing, choking on her own tears and the dust and smoke in the air. She wants to curl into herself, to _scream_ , a part of her silently praying that this is one of the nightmares that she’s memorized like a book, and that she’ll wake up in a few seconds and know that it wasn’t real, that it _couldn’t_ have been, because only in her dreams did she ever fuck up _this_ badly.

Lucina’s knees nearly buckle under the weight of one of the Risen, what’s left of a burly man more than twice her size, and with a growl she plunges Falchion into its abdomen and twists it, dark blood bursting from the wound like innards of an overripe fruit. It collapses a few seconds later and Lucina parries another blade, which quickly breaks against Falchion’s grandeur.

“You need to get out of here,” Lucina pants, side-stepping, her brand blazing in her eye. A streak of a Risen’s blood stains her cheek, running down to her chin like a tear.

“Are you kidding? I’m not leaving you here!” Severa blurts, louder than she’d meant to. Lucina ducks, narrowly avoiding a javelin, and sinks her blade into the Risen’s shoulder; its joint snaps, sounding like a macabre rubber band, and as it shrieks in pain Lucina flawlessly sinks Falchion into its heart, her steps so effortless it’s like she’s dancing, performing some kind of wicked, twisted, beautiful act on the battlefield, her own stage.

More Risen begin to emerge from the forest and the shadows, their red eyes glinting in the distance. Aghast, Severa scrambles to her feet, their gazes piercing her brain. Is that what she’s been seeing this whole time, their eyes instead of the fires? Holy shit. Holy shit.

At this rate they’ll be overrun.

It may have been Severa’s plan to die here but she’ll be _damned_ if the Exalt falls with her. Gods, this is going worse than she could’ve ever imagined. Why couldn’t Lucina stop being a goddamn hero for one second and let her fucking die?

Another lunges at Lucina like some kind of feral beast, and Lucina, overwhelmed, is hardly able to parry its strike; she stumbles back, her eyes wide, and before it can sink its blade into her neck Severa pulls out a dagger from her boot and digs it into its knee, cringing at the sound of metal against tendon and bone. The Risen falls into its own blade in a terrifying, ironic show of hubris, gurgling as blood rises from its throat. Regaining her footing Lucina rushes for Severa, her cape flying behind her, blackened blood dripping from the tip of Falchion’s blade.

“Come on,” She commands, grabbing Severa’s wrist. She takes off in a sprint back towards the castle and Severa, tears still in her eyes, throws her remaining dagger at the last Risen close enough to chase them, and she winces as it jumps at them and the blade plunges into its forehead just before it has a chance to grab her ankle.

A twisted part of her wishes Lucina would’ve never come for her at all, but she doesn’t say that.

-

It’s getting hard to breathe.

Hoping to shake the Risen off her tail, Lucina took a detour deep into the forest, even the burnt trees and foliage still dense enough to blot out most of the sky. The smell of smoke is thick and Lucina’s pace hasn’t slowed in the slightest, so now each step begins to feel like a knee to the gut. Severa’s throat is dry and cracking and she doesn’t know who to be angrier at. Lucina, lionhearted and too good for the world, for sticking her nose into this, or herself, for being stupid enough to think she wouldn’t be followed, that she’d get away with it.

“I’m slowing you down,” Severa pants, straining as Lucina knocks over a limb to cover their tracks and buy them time. Hundreds of embers float into the air like fireflies. “You should’ve left me back there.”

“Not a chance,” Lucina barks, not looking back. The dissonance in her voice nearly makes Severa trip. There’s passion, remorse, anger- a sort of cacophony Severa isn’t used to hearing from her.

For the next two hours Severa says nothing, but the shame for what she’s done, what she’s failed to do, leaves a taste in her mouth that makes her sick. Lucina is valiant and undying and strong, so strong she could kill hordes of Risen with only a few strikes, and Severa, damaged and forlorn, is the daughter of a prodigy who can’t even succeed in killing herself.

What a failure she must be in her mother’s eyes.

-

Severa’s hyperventilating by the time they reach Ylisstol, every limb in her body shaking. The sky is empty and dark and bleak. There’s so much anxiety and tension in her, coiled in her body like a spring, and no matter how many times she shuts her eyes all she sees is death. She sees her parents bleeding out. Chrom, gripping the electric blade lodged in his sternum, shock in his eyes as he falls into a pool of his own blood. In horror she watches children whose names she never got to learn get crushed and ripped apart by armies of Risen, their shrieks ringing in her ears as she ran away with what little life she had left.

Though out of breath and most of her energy, Lucina drags Severa to the master bath in the uppermost corridors of the castle, and she resorts to carrying Severa on her back after nearly falling down half a flight of stairs.

The first thing Severa sees when Lucina opens the door is the broken mirror, the fragments of reflective glass on the floor accompanied by patterns of her blood, bright scarlet against the marble tile. She grips the fabric of Lucina’s vest tightly, her bruised knuckles failing to pale from the tension, splotched with purple and blue and scratches that make her hand pulse.

“I’m sorry,” The words spill from Severa’s mouth like water, a guilty stream of consciousness, and she utters apologies so many times she forgets how foreign they once felt on her lips.

“Don’t apologize,” Lucina responds, resolute. She doesn’t look back, but her voice grows softer. “Please.”

She places Severa back-first against the tub, the lavish porcelain smooth and cool against her spine and shoulderblades, and she begins turning one of the levers until water starts running. Both of them are filthy, even their undergarments drenched in tears and gore and dirt, and the air around them still smells of smoke and charred flesh and blood.

“We need to get you cleaned up, okay?” Lucina continues gently, soothingly. “It’s okay now. You’re safe. Are you hurt?”

Severa shakes her head as she wipes her face with her sleeve, the caked blood on the fabric scratchy against her skin. Lucina kneels in front of her, her eyes glassy and blooming with tears, and wipes the wetness from Severa’s eyes with the pad of her thumb. The callouses on her skin are so much softer than Severa ever would’ve guessed.

“Severa,” She says, repeating her name like a mantra, her brand twinkling dimly in her eye like a star. “You’ve been through so much… you’ve seen more than any person should ever have to bear. I’m so sorry you’ve suffered as much as you have.” 

And Lucina embraces her, amidst the destruction and the gore and the darkness that lurks in Severa’s heart and follows her like a phantom, and in those moments whatever restraint Severa had left in her shatters like a piece of glass hitting a crystalline floor. It’s ugly, she thinks, the way the tears flow down her face in rivulets she can’t bring herself to control, and she shudders against Lucina as sobs claw out of her throat like curses. And Lucina’s right. It’s all been so much. Too much.

Lucina comforts her, running her fingers through Severa’s blood-caked hair, untangling the knots she finds, and she draws swirls on Severa’s back that are like dances with her other hand. Horror swims through her veins and she can only feel hatred at herself for what she is- a failure of a daughter forever living in her mother’s shadow, destined to always fall short of her predecessors. And Lucina, the Exalt, in all her glory and elegance, holds her like she _deserves_ it. Severa knows she doesn’t.

“I’m sorry,” Severa cries again, sniffling, clawing at Lucina’s shoulders as the tears continue to stain her garments. Her voice quivers and falters and it’s like she’s stumbling on pavement. “I’m so fucking _stupid_ , I don’t know what I was thinking and I could’ve gotten you killed and damned us all-”

“Don’t say that,” Lucina interrupts as she stifles a sob. “Severa, look at me.” She cups Severa’s face with her hands, her fingers tracing over the hollows of her cheekbones. Severa swears there are constellations in her eyes, far more beautiful than the ones that dot the sky in blue-white specks. She’s bloody and bruised and hurting, but in that moment Lucina has never looked more beautiful. “You are _brilliant_. You are not your mother, are neither her successes nor her failures. You are so much more than what you give yourself credit for. I admire you, Severa. I truly do.”

Severa hugs her tighter, squeezes her arms around Lucina like a child with a toy, and Lucina’s heartbeat pounds against her skin like a drum.

“This world needs you,” She continues, exhaling softly, releasing some of the tension from her body. Falchion hits the ground behind her, its sheath bouncing back and forth on the tile with a metallic clatter. “And I do too. Please stay.”

As Severa undresses she imagines the tub is filled with fire, and she baptizes herself in it, burning the image of her mother with her.

-

That night, long after she’s clean and dry, Lucina takes her to bed and cloaks the two of them in blankets from the master chambers. She leaves one candle lit in the room, and the lick of the flame lingers at the bottom of the wick like a meteor hovering inches from the ground. Severa feels like she’s dreaming, looking out of the eyes of a girl she doesn’t know yet is somehow all too familiar with.

Beneath the sheets, Severa traces the outline of Lucina’s collarbone with the tips of her fingers, pretends they’re empty spaces she can fill in with color and depth. Her touch is icy and riveting against Lucina’s skin, as poignant and precise as a needle threading clothes.

For a long while neither of them say anything.

“Why did you save me back there?” Severa says finally as she shifts, bringing her knees into her chest, and her response comes so matter-of-factly it sounds like they’re talking about a children’s game and certainly not a matter of life and death.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Lucina retorts, confused. “I wasn’t going to let you die back there.”

“How did you know?” She continues, swallowing. The dread is in her throat again, threatening to claw its way out.

“I came looking for you when you didn’t show up for dinner. At first I thought that perhaps you were just running late, but when I saw the ring on the nightstand I… I knew.” Lucina sighs. “I knew you were going to do something rash. You never outright said anything about it, but I speculated.” She pauses, her lips forming a thin line. “You were smart, Severa. So smart you only made one mistake that told me exactly where you were and what you were doing.”

“What do you mean?”

“I know you.”

“Oh.” Severa doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know if she’s angry at herself for opening up to someone enough to let them wriggle their way into what lies beneath the steely surface of her skin, or if she’s humbled, because no one has ever succeeded in getting through the thorny armor she hides in so well, the mask she wears like a second skin. No one has cared enough to until now.

“Why are we still here, Lucina?” She asks softly, grimly. Pain melts the ordinary apathy that coats her voice like a candied apple, and there’s a strain in her throat that makes the words crack as they leave her mouth. She’s so tired. “It’s broken. You said so yourself.”

Lucina blinks slowly, as if sleepy, and keeps her gaze fixated on the ceiling, intricate spirals and divots all curving into one central point like a target. She knows there’s a glassy layer of guilt over Severa’s eyes and can’t bring herself to look into them.

“Truthfully? I don’t entirely know,” Her response comes out as little more than a whisper, like the soft, nostalgic chirp of a cricket. “But I have hope. Perhaps it’s naïve of me, but I do.”

“Is it always going to be like this?” There’s a lump of grief in Severa’s throat that feels like steel, heavy and cold and full of melancholy.

“I don’t know.” Lucina repeats, struggling to stay monotone. “I…I hope not.”

“If it ever does change… don’t leave me behind, okay?” Severa’s fingers rest in the curve where Lucina’s collarbone meets her shoulder, and she drifts over a scar a Risen once gave her with a sword so sharp it chipped through her armor as if it was a knife cutting into butter. Flinching, Lucina had narrowly avoided an almost certain death, and Gerome had to fly her back to a nearby medical tent where Brady struggled to stitch the wound with shaky hands, pretending he knew how his mother, such a prestigious and proud woman, could close even the deepest of wounds and make it seem as easy as tying a shoe.

Lucina shifts, laying on her side, and their eyes meet. The look in them is so sickeningly sincere.

“Only if you stay with me, okay?”

Tears threaten to swell up in Severa’s eyes, but not out of anguish or hopelessness or hatred. Instead her heart swells, pounds with humility and appreciation and so much love she swears it could burst from her ribs like some kind of ferocious beast escaping captivity.

Lucina hands her Cordelia’s ring from the nightstand, and Severa twirls it around in her fingers. It’s cold and smooth against her skin, aside from the occasional scratch and chip in the metal. She thinks of her mother again, her crimson hair and gentle but fierce determination, her bright smile and soft brown eyes the color of mahogany. She, too, was so good. Too good, even.

“Yeah,” She says, sliding the ring onto her pointer finger. She used to wear it on a chain around her neck, then on the opposite hand, but it feels better on this one. New. “I’ll try.”

-

Severa finds that she sleeps better with Lucina. In the darkest hours of the night Lucina holds her, cradles her, shielding her from her nightmares and Risen alike, and when Severa wakes quivering and scared Lucina is always there, dark hair splaying messily down her shoulders, and she listens to her in the candlelight, presses her lips tenderly to each knuckle. She kisses every scar on Severa’s body, urges the wounds to weave themselves closed in starlight, uncaring as to whether it was inflicted by Severa’s own hand or a Risen’s blade. She fills the empty space between them with something so wholesome and gentle it’s almost foreign to Severa at first, actually being loved and cared for and valued.

She wakes up each morning feeling a little grateful now with Lucina’s body heat warm against her back, and when Lucina is still asleep she turns and traces the details of her face with her fingers, admiring her the way a collector would a painting. She has a long, slender nose and dark eyebrows, her pale skin rosy and smooth, flawless unlike the freckles that dot Severa’s nose and arms like specks of dirt. She has scars, too, but they’re not like the ones Severa has. They do not ache or scream or seethe in the same way. Severa’s scars bleed inside of her, show where the malice has sunk into the marrow of her bones, and the skin around them is tight and distended, white lines feathering out from them like roots from where Severa pried them open with her nails. Lucina’s scars are clean and smooth, pale little lines fading into her skin. They’re faint. Like they should be. Severa hopes hers can look like that one day, but Lucina tells her that she’s still the same no matter what, and that she’ll love her no matter what they look like. And she tells Severa that she should love her scars, love herself in all her imperfections and sharp edges, and while Severa doesn’t quite know how to do that yet Lucina’s words make her feel warm inside.

Lucina holds her every morning, before either of them go out to stand watch or look for supplies, or do whatever it is that needs doing. She promises to come back every time, and Severa nods and says the same. On some mornings it’s easier to leave than others.

Today is one of those days.

Lucina hums into Severa’s shoulder contently, her breath prickling as it makes its way into the juncture where her collarbone becomes her nape, and Severa sighs softly, relaxing as Lucina’s arms wrap around her chest.

“Don’t you have guard duty this morning? Y’know, Risen to slice?” Severa says, far more playful than she is serious. The last thing she wants to Lucina to do is leave.

“Mm, I do. I think I can manage a few more minutes, though,” Lucina sounds like the soft chime of bells and the sloshing of waves, so soft and melodic Severa could fall asleep if she wasn’t so entranced. “I could wake up to this every morning forever,” she continues, pressing a kiss on the back of Severa’s neck.

“Me too,” Severa says with a hint of a grin. “You better not just be buttering me up though, you hear me?”

She feels Lucina smile against her skin. She doesn’t smile much, but she knows it’s genuine. It has to be.

“I assure you, I’m not,” She retorts, her voice dropping down to an octave that makes Severa’s skin tingle. “I’m quite smitten with you, Severa.”

Lucina’s hand slides beneath her smallclothes now, teasing, and she traces Severa’s navel with a despairingly light touch that makes Severa want to groan with a tantalizing mix of desire and frustration.

“You’re going to be late, you know,” Severa manages with a soft gasp as Lucina’s touch glides up, up to her breasts, her fingertips like the point of a flame.

“You’re right,” Lucina coos, fondling Severa’s bare breast beneath her top, drifting once, twice, over her nipple, which hardens in an embarrassingly short amount of time. “But I’d much rather be here with you right now. I’m sure they’ll manage a few extra minutes…”

 _They damn well better_ , Severa thinks, feeling her skin ignite, heat coiling in her belly. A rush of pleasure surges through her and she lets out a gentle moan as Lucina pinches her nipple between her fingers and kisses her neck, leaving just a slight nip at the end of each peck.

“Do you want this, Severa?” Lucina mewls into her ear, her voice now deliciously husky, and it makes Severa feel hardly more than an abashed, needy teenager helplessly in love with someone far too good for her.

“Gods, yes,” she breathes, hardly resisting the urge to press her hips forwards, seeking some kind of friction for the heat in her core as she splays her legs wider and hopes Lucina gets the message.

With another smile Lucina’s other hand slides between Severa’s legs, not even bothering to take off her clothes, and her fingers, now far too deft and aware of how to make Severa come undone, trace over the hood of her clit in languid, loose circles. Severa gasps against her touch and grinds into her palm, and within mere minutes she’s panting and quivering and desperate, her self-control dwindling, release resting in Lucina’s hands.

Lucina tells her how good she is, how much she loves her moans and her gasps, says she’s beautiful, more beautiful than anything she’s ever seen. Severa, eyes fluttering, stars bursting white-hot in her vision like fireworks, tilts her head back, letting Lucina nibble at the most sensitive spots of her throat, covering her skin in purple-red bites.

“I love you,” Severa gasps, on the verge of climax, every nerve in her body tingling with pleasure. Release trickles down her spine and she comes with a groan, repeating the same phrase over and over again until it’s the only thing she knows. _I love you, I love you, I love you, I-_

“I love you too,” Lucina coos, and the words swim in Severa’s head. She hasn’t told Lucina she loved her ever since she drunkenly confessed to her those nearly two months ago, and Lucina has never said it before. It feels nice. Incredible, even.

Lucina tilts Severa’s head for a kiss, placing a soft, tender peck on her lips, and she smooths over the wrinkles in her clothes.

“I’ll be back later. I think you’re on supply duty tonight. Be safe, okay?” Lucina kisses her again, briefly, and stands, slipping on her armor and boots, sheathing Falchion on her side. “I love you, Severa.”

For the rest of the day Severa thinks of her, and how her hair looked so bright and brilliant in the morning light, a million shades of blue and black and purple like the edge of a dark prism.

-

A week later the Risen launch an attack on Ylisstol. Severa is half-asleep in a corner of the mess hall after standing watch all night and pillaging goods from bandit groups when the sound of glass suddenly breaking shakes her awake. She nearly falls out of her seat, tips backward as spears and arrows and screams break out all around her. The Grimleal follow close behind, their violet eyes glistening, tomes lighting up as spells shoot from the tips of their fingers. She scrambles to her feet and unsheathes her sword as Kjelle steps over her, arrows bouncing off her armor as if they were no more than mere pebbles.

“You need to get reinforcements,” Kjelle urges, slamming a Risen into a wall and crushing it with the kind of strength her mother was renowned for. “Otherwise we’re screwed here. Severa, go!”

Severa runs, the adrenaline like acid in her blood, and she grips her blade so tightly the hilt presses lines into her palms. She finds Lucina darting through the courtyard, terror in her eyes, sweat gliding down her temples, and she orders the first group of soldiers that emerge from the garrison to the other side of the castle.

“Shit,” Lucina spats, drawing Falchion, her words hardly audible as a clap of thunder bellows, loud enough to render even the heavens. “How bad is it there?”

“We need backup,” Severa replies, eyeing the sky; above them Grimleal riding wyverns launch balls of fire from their palms, the embers and ashes and bodies alike pouring down on them like rain. She watches as a falcon knight is consumed in buds of red-orange flames and it spreads to the rest of her body, spooking her Pegasus, and she falls from her saddle with a shriek and plummets towards the ground. The sound her body makes from the impact is mortifying and poignant enough that Severa hears it amidst all the fighting, and she blanches when she looks at the girl’s limbs, bent out and grotesque, a few of her bones poking through her skin like the limbs of trees poking through water.

The Pegasus descends to the ground in a frenzy, wings unfurled, hooves clacking against the pavement, and without even thinking Severa instinctively brings her fingers to her mouth and whistles, just like her mother used to. The sound is out of practice and albeit a bit off key, but it works, and within a few seconds the Pegasus makes its way to her, its ears defensively angled back, still on alert but no longer in a complete panic. Severa grasps one of the reins in her hands, the familiar leather rough against her fingers, and she briefly gazes into its dark amber eyes.

“I think I’ll be okay here,” She yells to Lucina. “Go help the others!”

Lucina’s gaze is sullen and riddled with worry.

“You’re sure?” Lucina approaches her, her lips thinned with seriousness. She squeezes Severa’s hand tightly.

Another clap of thunder booms, followed by a bright streak of lightning cracking through the sky.

“Positive.”

Lucina still watches her as Severa lets go of her hand and throws herself onto the Pegasus, sliding her feet into the spurs. The feeling is familiar but distant like a half-asleep dream, and although she wavers she does not give in; she cannot, she _will_ not, and as she urges the Pegasus back into the skies and draws her sword she feels the wind in the spaces between her fingertips, colder and mightier than it has ever been before, and she knows that she is not the same smiling little girl perched in her mother’s lap, reaching for clouds and stars alike, and she accepts that she never will be.

She is nineteen years old, the daughter of a dead prodigy and she is still broken, as she always is, but for once in her life Severa feels everything but useless, and it doesn’t even cross her mind once if her mother would be proud of her.

-

Ylisstol is in shambles and there are only a handful of survivors. Nearly half the castle has collapsed, leaving only a fraction of rooms and armories accessible, and those who aren’t dead are likely gravely injured.

Lucina is lucky. She sports only a few new cuts, a particularly impressive one on her cheek, and Severa is even luckier, left with only a few bruises and cuts that’ll heal within a week. The remaining Risen have scattered with the Grimleal, retreating back into the forests, leaving the halls and courtyard littered with bodies, torn tomes, and bloody, discarded weapons.

After hauling the injured off to a makeshift medical tent Severa heads into what’s left of the upper corridors and finds Lucina changing into a pair of smallclothes. When she turns Severa sees four tiny stitches closing the wound on her cheek, and Lucina lets out a relieved sigh as she embraces her.

“Are you all right? That looks… awful.” Severa murmurs, following the path of the cut with only her eyes. It’s deep, starting just beneath her cheekbone, and it trails all the way up to the bridge of her nose.

“I’ll be fine. It looks a lot worse than it feels, to be honest,” Lucina says nonchalantly. “I told Brady I didn’t need stitches, but he insisted.”

Severa’s eyes narrow. Like her father Lucina has always been stubborn and self-sacrificing, and she wouldn’t put it past Lucina to downplay her own pain.

“Are you sure you shouldn’t still be down there? You know… in case he wants to keep an eye on it?” Severa pries, understandably cautious.

Lucina exhales into Severa’s shoulder, holding her close.

“Like I said, I’ll be fine. They have far more important things to worry about than a tiny cut on my cheek. Would you mind laying down with me?”

Of course she wouldn’t. She’s exhausted and her feet ache, and she’s more than sure Lucina is fatigued, too. She curls into bed beside Lucina, their legs tangling together, sore and bruised and seeking warmth, and Lucina’s hair looks like vines curving up a trellis against the pale sheets.

“Severa… You trust me, right?” Lucina breathes. Behind her the faint light from the candle draws dim spheres on the walls through the holes in the curtains.

Severa’s brows knit.

“Of course I do. I’d die for you. With you,” Severa answers, watching the willpower burn in Lucina’s eyes.

“I… I want to try it. The Awakening,” Lucina continues softly, curiously. “Maybe... maybe it would be enough. What if Naga had mercy on us?”

Severa gulps. This world is not a merciful one. How painful Lucina’s optimism can be at times.

“I… I don’t know if it would work.” Severa struggles to keep eye contact, not wanting Lucina to see her doubt. “What if it all goes to shit?”

“I don’t know. But look how things are now. What do we have to lose at this point? I can’t sit here and wait for Grima. For death. This… this is all we have left.”

“So what are you suggesting?”

“We go to Mount Prism. We fight. Am I crazy, Severa? For thinking this might work?”

“Well, yeah. But I think that’s just in your blood.”

“I can’t really deny that, can I?” Lucina’s grin quickly turns solemn and she sighs in thought, her lips curving into a thin, straight line like the stem of a plant. “Then it’s settled. Tomorrow morning we rally the survivors and march. And if it all ends there… “

“We’ll know we did all we could,” Severa provides, grazing over the wound on Lucina’s cheek with her fingers.

Lucina nods, blinking back tears.

“Are you scared?” She asks softly, her tone so frail and atypical it hardly sounds like the Lucina Severa knows so well; what she hears is not Lucina the brave princess, the proud Shepherd of Ylissean royalty, a girl too strong to show how deep her wounds run inside of her. For once Lucina is weak. Perhaps weaker than she’s ever been.

“Of course I am,” Severa susurrates. Lucina’s words ache, throb like a bruise painted just beneath her skin. “I’m only human, and so are you. And that’s okay.”  

Lucina looks at her, an unhinged desperation in her eyes, tears streaming wildly down her face. “What if that’s not enough, Severa? What if people die… if we _fail_ because of me?”

Severa’s eyes widen. What a grueling weight rests on Lucina’s shoulders, far heavier than the burdens that everyone else bears. And she’s carried it all herself. Severa knows pain, loss, longing- sometimes she felt it all at once, a cataclysmic typhoon that had her sobbing into her hands as she stood over hollow makeshift graves and buried people far too young to be buried. And other times she felt cold. The world was winter and it injected an emotional anesthesia into her veins that left only bitterness and a deeply seeded desire for revenge inside of her, and she fed on it, fueled herself with it, watched as she justified her own hatred when she made her voice a whip and her words chased people away. But Lucina isn’t like that.

“You are so much more than what you give yourself credit for,” Severa tells her, repeating the same words Lucina had told her those few months ago. “And you are enough.”

Lucina’s tears fall to Severa’s face like petals and she holds her tight, so tight her nails dig crescents into the back of Severa’s shoulders, and she kisses her with so much fervor Severa feels ablaze, rising like a phoenix.

They make what must be the closest thing to love that night, both of their lives hanging from a thread, and they are but two broken girls direly in need of escape from their fear of their own inadequacy.

-

The Awakening fails, and to their horror Grima’s forces are already there waiting for them.

Severa had a horrible feeling deep inside that it would, and she buried it so far within herself she could feel it itching within her ribs, but as Lucina is clinging to her and screaming Naga manifests, albeit briefly, and holds out her hand. Severa thinks at first that it’s some kind of trick, most certainly Grima’s doing, but the look in her green eyes is so sincere and Severa can hardly believe that she’s there, that she’s actually _real_ , and she tells them that not everything is lost.

 _There is a possibility_ , she says, urging Lucina to look up at her. Lucina’s face is red and slick from crying and the shame in her eyes suddenly dissipates. _You can go back. Prevent fate from unfolding in the same way._

It’s finite and tricky and entirely possible that it will do more harm than good, she warns, but there is no other option now. It’s this or death. So Lucina nods, still holding up Falchion like an offering, and says that they’ll do it.

 _I will repel him as long as I can,_ Naga continues. _With what little strength I have left._

The ward she creates is weak and already cracking, and what was once Robin stares at them from the other side as if looking through a window, dark lines around his eyes, what’s left of his skin and cloak singed and in pieces. His irises glow violet like the Grimleal’s tomes and the six-eyed brand on his hand glows, bringing forth a mortifying gust of wind that prefaces a massive set of wings. They all know what it is. The wind shrieks against the field, nearly shattering the barrier, sounding so, so similar to the mirror Severa fractured with her own fist, and even Naga startles as she slowly conjures up a portal into the unforeseen future.

Grima’s size is even more astronomical than Severa thought. So the tales were true. The fell dragon’s wings could indeed crush cities, render even the strongest of buildings to nothing but ash, and his six narrow, poignant eyes blink in terrifying unison, each pupil shrinking as it focuses on Lucina. The air smells of bile and acid and the electricity makes Severa’s hair stand up, goosebumps cascading down her skin, hardly different than the dull violet scales that coat Grima’s body.

Standing in front of everyone, desperate to be the leader her father was, Lucina swallows hard, Falchion drawn. She’s shaking.

 _You will die_ , Grima tells them, teeth gleaming. His voice makes the ground crumble and quake beneath them. Lucina clutches Falchion tight and bares her teeth, pointing the blade between his six eyes. It occurs to Severa how small they seem now, a band of teenagers armed only with their own trauma and a holy blade worth more than all their lives put together. And against Grima, the very reincarnation of death and despair and destruction, an otherworldly creature who’s lived for thousands and thousands of years, so powerful he’s only been damned to slumber every few millennia.

They don’t have long.

“I’ll go with you. Last,” Severa whispers to her. Lucina nods quickly.

“Go,” Lucina tells the others, steely but nothing short of terrified. The first round begins to make their way through the portal, battered but still walking. Cynthia, Gerome, Kjelle, Yarne.

 _Your efforts will be futile,_ Grima continues, unfurling each row of wings as he rises in the air, blocking out what little light there was in the sky; his silhouette is stark against the clouds, streaks of light peeking through each flap that sends a debris-filled gust downwards. _You cannot reverse what has already occurred. You humans are foolish creatures._

“You’re wrong,” Lucina hisses.

 _I’ll kill them in front of you. Each of them. One by one,_ Grima taunts sadistically. Severa’s blood goes cold. _To show you how you’ve failed._

“You won’t,” Lucina counters as the next round begin to make their way through. Noire. Nah. Brady. Owain, ridiculous as ever, follows close behind, his hand covering half of his face.

_Do you really believe you stand a chance?_

“I do.”

Grima’s gaze switches to Severa.

_Do you think your mother will love you more in that world?_

“And if she does? Fuck you,” Severa growls, looking at every one of Grima’s eyes, the vitriol rising in her throat.

Noire holds Morgan’s hand as they pass through with Inigo, her short hair blowing in the wind as Grima shatters the barrier. With her energy spent, Naga disappears and the portal begins to shrink.

Grima speaks through Robin now like a ventriloquist, his voice an omnipotent roar, and he manifests in front of them in plumes of blue-black fire.

 _But in the end, will you be able to leave this world behind?_ He asks. _The very world that all but damned you, killed you._

The world she’s grown to hate but can’t escape. The world she avoids, yet keeps coming back to. So much of Severa’s rancor lies here, amidst the dirt and destruction and mayhem, the very disorder she’s made a home in. Her own self-hatred grows beneath her feet and pokes through the ground like a weed, and Grima, speaking through a man who committed the greatest act of treason against the man he loved so much, knows this.

And Severa knows it will follow her, too. The grief. The anger. The confusion.

“Yes. I can and I will.” She says, resolute.

So Severa walks hand-in-hand not just with Lucina but the girl she is and the girl she’ll grow up to be.

She is a lily and the daughter of the sea and she burns, just like she was always meant to, and she doesn't look back. 


End file.
